[tokyoseb]

Wittgenstein didn’t come come up with the idea of a “private language” but in his Philosophical Investigations he famously argued that the concept itself is nonsense (not via a single logical “proof” but using several thought experiments).

The idea that a private language exists (ie. ‘mentalese’) is taken for granted by a lot of authors. I recently read Stephen Pinker’s book The Language Instinct and he never seemed to doubt the concept for instance.

[paganel]

I have not read Pinker so I don’t have a good idea of what he meant by “mentalese”, but Humboldt was using the concept of “private language” more on the lines of two different people having different “understandings” (for a lack of a better word) for concepts bearing the sama name. For example when I think of a “red apple” I might think of a different thing compared to when you think of a “red apple” on your turn (leaving aside the issue that we still need to settle on what “thing” from the previous sentence actually means).

I must admit that I last read some Wittgenstein about 15 years ago, but even so, I don’t find that this understanding of what a “private language” really means is that far off from his writings. If anything, it completely invalidates the 2000-year old platonic “ideas”, as me and you thinking of different things when presented with the words “red apple” practically means that there is no underlying “red” or “apple” idea behind those concepts. That is something very valuable, Plato’s interpretation being debunked, that is.

[chernov]

>practically means that there is no underlying “red” or “apple” idea behind those concepts. That is something very valuable, Plato’s interpretation being debunked, that is.

This is one of my favorite parts in a fictional book Anathem. The question of syntax and semantics is explored there, and even a solution is suggested.